Once upon a midnight dreary, while we trudged on, weak and weary
Over many overgrown and broken battlements of yore.
While I stumbled, almost napping, suddenly I felt it tapping,
It’s horrid darkness indeed was tapping at my heart’s small rusty door.
And this Dark Will alone I truly, deeply, fear–
Only this and not much more.
As I distinctly remember, it was in the cold December,
When the Nine set out from Rivendell like in a tale from ancient lore.
But, that bold man from Gondor, Boromir, who eagerly and with sad sorrow,
Kept watching me, and sought to borrow– Borrow! it for his home Gondor–
The distant land so close to darkness, that the kings of old named Gondor.
I turn from him forever more.
The dismal, sad and uncertain fate we face is like a curtain
That blinds us- confines us: Nine Walkers who never strode abreast since the days of yore.
And still the shadow overtakes me, but I stay strong so He cannot break me.
I realized not the danger He now proves to be before,
But no matter how hard the shadow knocks at my heart’s weak and broken door;
My shadowed path leads not to Gondor.
The other man here who seems stronger, holding fast to wisdom longer,
Is Strider, or Aragorn, of who’s strange past I do not dare implore.
At night I see him, never napping, on his pipe he’s always tapping,
Soft, steady tapping, as if he’s lost in dangerous thought and always seems unsure.
Perhaps always seeking within himself for that lofty door…
Is it himself that he abhors?
Many a night I have stayed peering, out into the ominous darkness, fearing,
Hoping that my end would not come to be in the darkness of dreaded Mordor.
I fell asleep, then was woken, by flames and shadow that were His token,
His eye upon me, yet nothing was spoken, I gave a cry and woke as startled as I was before.
With sixteen eyes upon me I settled back down to the floor.
I despise the Ring forever more.